Marketing

CASE STUDY

Multinational Manufacturer

Modernizing customer engagement through digital selling

Challenge

Our client, a large global manufacturer, sells a wide range of materials used in consumer products, medical devices and more. As a top-200 private U.S. business, this company had achieved a great deal of success by driving product innovation founded on scientific excellence.

Although the company’s seasoned team of field sales representatives had historically driven solid performance results, the global health crisis (COVID-19) severely impacted its access to key buyers.

The business was in urgent need of a new approach to selling and hired Prophet to modernize its digital experience and the engagement capabilities of its salesforce.

Solution

As Prophet’s team of Marketing & Sales consultants dug into the issues facing this organization, they uncovered that by taking a digital-minded approach, our client could:

  • Better reach its core target audiences
  • Develop content that was more engaging to its customers
  • Leverage engagement data to inform offline sales interactions
  • More efficiently orchestrate the sales process

To get started, our team focused on how sales and marketing could partner to improve its digital selling capability through digitally-powered content, stronger messaging effectiveness and the use of data and platforms to improve the sales experience.

Prophet delivered a compelling business case for change and proved the value of evolving its digital selling capacity against a defined set of use cases with pre-post-defined outcomes. The business case was supported by a new operating model which detailed the requirements for developing, maintaining and optimizing the proposed new digital selling capabilities. Our consultants partnered with the client’s marketing, sales and customer experience teams to roll out the new digital selling capability, including new digital tools for frontline sales teams.

Results

Our work for this client extended beyond strategy to provide a detailed, sustainable operating model to deploy and sustain its digital selling transformation. We helped to accelerate this client’s vision, maximize its investment and ease the implementation of its new digital selling capabilities.

Following this project, this manufacturer observed a direct lift in sales, improved customer satisfaction and increased sales associate productivity.

CASE STUDY

BASF Coatings

Developing a Customer-Centric Value Proposition To Drive Growth and Loyalty

Challenge

As one of the world’s leading surface solutions manufacturers, BASF Coatings has always maintained a strong capacity to innovate. But like the process of innovation itself BASF needed to evolve to stay competitive.

As the business looked to expand its product portfolio with a new line, Prophet was engaged to support BASF in defining a customer-centric value proposition to drive growth and loyalty amongst its B2B customers.

Solutions

BASF needed to better understand its customers and determine the right target audience for its new product launch. Prophet started by identifying the needs, priorities and motivations of BASF’s most important stakeholders to develop a range of buyer personas. The persona development phase was informed by field visits, interviews and extensive industry research.

Next, the team worked to define the ideal customer journey, covering the entire funnel from awareness to loyalty, including key touchpoints and a status quo assessment. We identified opportunities to optimize touchpoints and developed service concepts and signature solutions to help BASF further differentiate itself from competitors.

Aligned with – and answering – the needs of the prioritized target buyer personas, we developed a customer-centric value proposition.

Results

Prophet’s efforts helped BASF Coatings to develop a clear and succinct value proposition oriented at the real needs of its customers. The Glasurit 100 line was launched with a clear, focused and consistent approach and has been a game-changer for its customers, bringing an extremely tailored and unique positioning to the market.

“We were very happy to partner with Prophet at the critical stages of the project to define a core value proposition that helped guide our Glasurit 100 Line to triumph”, says Fabien Boschetti, Director, Global Marketing, BASF Automotive Refinish Coatings Solutions. “We thank Prophet for all their contributions and support in helping to make 100 Line a big success globally!”

“Glasurit 100 line is a game-changer for our customers and we were very happy to partner with Prophet at the early critical stages of the project to define a core value proposition that helped make the product line a big success globally!”

Fabien Boschetti
Director, Global Marketing, BASF Automotive Refinish Coatings Solutions

CASE STUDY

GARDENA

Growing a brand through a customer-centric transformation

Challenge

After years of steady growth, GARDENA – a brand of the Husqvarna group – is the leading pioneer of high-quality garden tools in Europe and is represented in more than 80 countries all over the world.

While its focus on engineering-driven innovation and revolutionary design is an immense asset, GARDENA realized that it needed to deepen connections with current and future customers to continue its success story. Prophet was tasked with transforming GARDENA into a customer-centric organization, with a focus on evolving its approach to marketing and go-to-market strategy.

Solutions

Collaborating with marketing teams across key regions, Prophet established a uniform approach for GARDENA’s marketing community to think beyond product launches and selling. Prophet encouraged the adoption of an ‘always-on,’ customer-centric mindset that focused deeply on customer retention and value creation.

We instilled processes and systems, supported by easy-to-use tools and templates, to drive marketing effectiveness. The initiatives laddered up to GARDENA’s goals and were tracked to prove maximum efficiencies.

Together, with the marketing leadership, we defined the capabilities and operating model required to deliver against GARDENA’s customer-centric targets. The new operating model was designed to align capabilities along the entire consumer journey, emphasize digital effectiveness and ensure that a consistent, purpose-led brand directs the activation across traditional and digital channels. The target result was a seamless omnichannel customer experience.

A learning program was also developed to ensure the marketing community was inspired and empowered with the right skill set to make GARDENA’s ambition a reality.

Results

Prophet positioned GARDENA to become the world-class, customer-centric organization it aspired to be. A strong customer-centric mindset has now become part of the organizational DNA. The new marketing KPIs, metrics and purposeful processes deployed are boosting consumer engagement and powering a more digitally savvy GARDENA brand.

Staying in pole position requires continuous transformation. Thus, Prophet will continue its journey with GARDENA with ongoing learning programs designed to upskill its full marketing function. Additionally, Prophet will continue to build the long-term brand strategy roadmap for the business to keep customer-centricity firmly at its core.

CASE STUDY

Canoo

Jump-starting a new electric vehicle brand

Challenge

Canoo was founded to answer this question: How can we simplify urban life by reimagining mobility in cities?

However, as the demographics of America’s cities continue to evolve, Canoo’s innovative business model needed to target the right urban consumers directly. Prophet was brought in to lead an agile and iterative process before, during and after the initial vehicle “reveal.”

Solutions

Through thorough research into electric car marketing and customer subscription preferences, Prophet identified six potential customer archetypes.

In a 10-week span, Prophet tested attitudes on a yet-to-be-released product, leveraging its market insights and innovative strategy capabilities to develop a robust segmentation strategy.

With deep customer insights in hand, we prioritized a target – 6 percent of the market – with the highest likelihood to buy an electric vehicle subscription. This target was developed based on attitudes around technology adoption, car-sharing and the ability to pay, among other dimensions.

Results

The Canoo product launch was met with overwhelmingly positive reviews and press coverage, anchored by a deep understanding of the brand’s customer target and position in the mobility-as-a-service ecosystem.

Canoo followed this up by using our segmentation targeting and typing tool to gamify and fuel a dynamic waitlist experience.

This experience continues to build excitement for the brand, while informing key business decisions about vehicle design, membership features, pricing tiers and marketing strategy.

CASE STUDY

Medtronic

Re-organizing a marketing team to meet key business needs

Challenge

Medtronic, a global medical technology company, has been rapidly expanding through organic and acquisitional growth. As customer segments expanded, stakeholder expectations evolved and new business and product teams emerged. The company’s corporate marketing team recognized the need to rethink how omnichannel campaigns and content would support enterprise growth.

Solutions

Prophet worked with leaders across the global brand, marketing and communications teams to collaboratively define a new vision for corporate marketing. The new concept was designed to clarify priorities, set objectives and identify the necessary moves to both evolve and execute. We employed a mix of industry best practices and Prophet proprietary tools and frameworks to give Medtronic a custom-built solution.

A key component of the new vision was a framework articulating the role corporate marketing plays for the company as a whole, as well as its different businesses and regions. Prophet used its marketing archetypes to align on the right model for Medtronic.

From there, we outlined business and technology implications, key strategic moves and a transformation roadmap to support the new vision, so the Medtronic team could execute the strategy independently over time.

Results

As Medtronic continues on its mission to alleviate pain, restore health and extend life for patients around the world, the company’s corporate marketing team is now executing on a vision that is tightly connected with the enterprise business strategy. The team is well-positioned as the global driver of the Medtronic story.

“Modern marketing teams continue to evolve and stretch to meet stakeholder needs. Repeatable frameworks are helpful, but there is no one-size-fits-all approach that fits every organization. Prophet helped us think through a number of approaches and worked with us to create a vision and roadmap that meets our unique business needs.” -Greg McCullough, Senior Director of Corporate Marketing for Medtronic.

“Prophet helped us think through a number of approaches and worked with us to create a vision and roadmap that meets our unique business needs.”

Greg McCullough
Senior Director of Corporate Marketing for Medtronic

CASE STUDY

Funimation

Helping reinvent & remarket a next-generation entertainment studio

Challenge

Funimation, the leading anime distribution company in the world, wanted to make the transition from an analog DVD business to a digital-first, streaming-driven company. To succeed with their next wave of enterprise growth, the company knew they needed to take on today’s increasingly digital entertainment landscape with fresh products, and a new approach to how they went to market amidst a rapidly changing landscape and consumer fan base.

Solutions

We started by refreshing their traditional segmentation with a digital-first lens to better understand how their consumers engage and interact with brands, fellow fans and media in the online space. Development of digital profiles provided a more detailed perspective of digital behaviors, informing the customer experience journey, value proposition and go-to-market strategy. Based on what we learned from research, Prophet refined the brand positioning, grounding it more substantially in fans’ insatiable appetite to discover extraordinary anime content.

We designed a fan-first digital value proposition anchored on flexibility and customization – a highly differentiated position in a crowded anime market. This new model entirely reshapes product, pricing, content and community.

Prophet then drafted new customer experience journeys by identifying the target audience’s needs and pain points throughout, with an eye towards addressing key gaps. Each phase of the experience inspired signature product and experience offerings that brought the value proposition to life. The various experience touchpoint and offering ideas were prioritized based on technical feasibility and business impact. Experiences and ideas were codified and prioritized based on both technical feasibility and business impact. We worked with management and media teams to estimate revenue impact, design a marketing plan, including a revamped social strategy.

Results

Our project culminated in the development of a digitally-driven go-to-market plan and detailed roadmap and actionable playbook, which is enabling staff and repositioning Funimation and strengthening their lead in the streaming anime market. Funimation achieved its company subscriber goals, paving the way for its recent acquisition by Sony for $143mm.

CASE STUDY

Thyssenkrupp Elevator

Strengthening a global brand in the Asia Pacific region.

Challenge

German technology and materials conglomerate, ThyssenKrupp, turned to Prophet for help developing a stronger brand for their elevator division across the Asia Pacific region. It was a multifaceted challenge as the brand needed to resonate across a range of diverse markets, including China, India, South East Asia and Australia.

As well as cultural and linguistic differences, each market had a different product and service portfolio, maturity level and construction market focus. The company has an engineering culture with a low level of brand understanding, yet as a latecomer to Asia, brand building was an essential strategic priority to help raise awareness, drive consideration and make the company the preferred employer in the category.

Solution

Following an audit where we interviewed internal and external stakeholders including customers and influencers such as architects and elevator consultants, we co-created a clear, ownable positioning for the brand around the territory of ‘customer-centric solutions.’ This was expressed through the brand idea, ‘With you all the way’ and four principles: helpful, ingenious, reliable and rigorous.

These principles would shape the desired employee behaviors as well as the wider brand experience. Then we developed a simple, bold, icon-driven identity system that allowed the brand to communicate complex stories in a simple way. We redesigned the entire customer experience from marketing communications, website experience, customer showroom journey, trade show stand and merchandise look and feel.

Results

The new brand has helped ThyssenKrupp Elevator become the fastest-growing player in Asia’s elevator market, enjoying multi-year, double-digit growth. Internally, through an Asia-wide employee engagement survey, we found that 95% of employees say they felt inspired by the new brand and understand how to live up to it in their daily work.

CASE STUDY

Electrolux

Developing a demand-driven business growth strategy

Challenge

Electrolux, a global leader in household and professional appliances, set out to leapfrog competitors through a demand-driving business growth strategy. They viewed the emergence of digitally-enabled shoppers, the growth in new retail formats and the surge in consumer buying power in emerging markets as a unique opportunity to gain a competitive advantage.

Solutions

Electrolux leaders partnered with Prophet to drive demand among targeted consumers through offer innovation, improvements to the shopping experience, new digital marketing tools and post-purchase experience upgrades. Working across business sectors and geographies, growth teams started clarifying the growth agenda and uncovering insights into the key drivers of consumer demand for offers and experiences. Global and sector teams developed multi-year, step-by-step roadmaps for innovation, digital marketing, consumer shopping experiences, post-purchase experiences and internal talent development. Individual sectors are now implementing several of these programs, piloting initiatives in new capability areas and rolling out focused new product launch programs.

The transformation includes building internal capabilities as well as launching programs in-market. Prophet worked with Electrolux’s CMO, CEO and sector business leaders to deliver a unique growth leadership development program for the top 350 brand, experience and product innovators across the company. They have become ambassadors for the transformation of Electrolux to a consumer-driven company.

Results

In the quarter after activation, the company delivered its ninth consecutive period of organic growth. The organization has produced a step-change in the number of products and experience innovations that exceed new, aggressive standards for meeting consumers’ needs; resulting in North America sales growth of 1.1%, and margin increases of 4.3%.

Impact

9

consecutive quarters of growth

1.1%

North America sales growth

4.3%

increase in margins

CASE STUDY

MET-Rx

Creating an aspirational brand in a functional category

Challenge

30 years ago, MET-Rx invented protein powder. But, as competitors caught up, MET-Rx didn’t continue as innovators of the category. Over time, the brand lost its relevance and limited its growth by focusing on the culture of professional body-building. So, Met-Rx partnered with Prophet to revitalize its messaging strategy in order to take back the category it created and regain relevance in mainstream culture.

Solutions

We designed a research strategy to better understand the MET-Rx customer—who they are, what matters to them and what they’re looking for. We engaged them in intimate co-creation focus groups and mobile shop-alongs to get ideas for how MET-Rx could begin to speak to them. Then, leveraging the strengths of our business in strategy, marketing and design, Prophet developed various brand messaging platforms and tested them in qualitative sessions with consumers and stakeholders alike. The rich feedback, suggestions and insight we gleaned from the testing sessions gave us specific direction so we could create the final brand idea.

Results

Since launching its new messaging strategy, Met-Rx has revitalized its brand by comprehensively rolling out the Prophet-created “You Can’t Fake Strong” brand idea. This new direction includes a new website, logo refresh, brand line, brand story, updated product packaging and partnerships.

Prophet was also engaged to help create a name and key messaging for their latest product innovation which reinforces the brand idea. With their new direction, Met-Rx has developed a clear path forward for both innovation and communications. With the strategic partnership of Tough Mudder, MET-Rx is living the “You Can’t Fake Strong” brand and quickly regaining relevance with mainstream athletes.

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